Retail shopping facilities (i.e., so-called bricks-and-mortar facilities that accommodate physical visits by customers and where the customer views and physically selects desired products for retail purchase) have long utilized a variety of product display surfaces to present offered products. Examples of such surfaces include a variety of shelves made of a wide variety of materials including metals, wood, paperboard, plastics, and so forth.
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are also known in the art. These so-called tags often assume the form factor of a label or a literal “tag” but are also sometimes integrated with a host article and/or its packaging. RFID tags typically comprise an integrated circuit and one or more antennas. The integrated circuit typically carries out a variety of functions including modulating and demodulating radio frequency signals, data storage, and data processing. Some integrated circuits are active or self-powered (in whole or in part) while others are passive, being completely dependent upon an external power source (such as an RFID tag reader) to support their occasional functionality.
There are proposals to utilize RFID tags to individually identify individual items. If and when all products in a retail shopping facility are each provided with a corresponding RFID tag that can uniquely identify their respective product, it may be possible to monitor displayed products in order to determine when, for example, a given product display surface is running low on inventory. That information could then be used to prompt replenishment of the product display surface.
Unfortunately, such is not presently the case. As a result, to some very large extent the replenishment of emptied product display surfaces may not occur in a timely manner. This situation is undesirable for both the consumer and the enterprise that operates the retail shopping facility.
Elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present teachings. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present teachings. Certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. The terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.